Boxers who don't wear padded head gear could be risking brain damage in every fight, according to new research.

Headgear on the market today should also be redesigned, to protect against a specific kind of impact that can cause brain injury.

Current head gear only protects against 'linear' impacts, rather than 'rotational' impacts that spin the head around.

Today's head gear does cut the number of impacts that damage fighters, say Cleveland Clinic researchers.

The findings - from a study with crash-test dummies - are particularly applicable to young fighters, the researchers said.

The Cleveland Clinic is also researching the extent of brain damage in professional fighters, with a planned research project using MRI scans to assess the level of brain damage in professional boxers.

In their biomechanics lab at
Cleveland Clinic's Lutheran Hospital, the researchers replicated hook
punches to the head using a crash test dummy and a pendulum.

The impacts were measured with several combinations of protective wear including protective headwear and gloves.

Headgear works best to reduce impacts when used with boxing gloves, say the researchers, helping fighters resist both 'straight line' impacts and 'rotational impacts' where an object rotates on its axis.

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'These results show that gloves and
headgear can offer some meaningful protection, proving that fighters –
especially young fighters – should wear headgear whenever possible,'
said Edward Benzel, M.D., Chair of Cleveland Clinic's Department of
Neurological Surgery.The research – published online today by the Journal of Neurosurgery – measured both linear impacts and rotational impacts.

Linear impacts involve a straight-line collision of two objects, like a car driving straight into a wall in crash tests.

Rotational impacts cause an object to rotate on its axis, such as the head rotating on the neck.

The boxing-gloves-and-headgear combination proved the most effective in reducing impact forces.

Though all of the padding combinations offered some reduction in linear impact forces, they did not lessen rotational impact forces.

'There is ample medical literature that points to rotational impacts as being key contributors to head and neck injuries,' said lead researcher Adam Bartsch, Ph.D., Director of the Spine Research Lab in Cleveland Clinic's Center for Spine Health.

'However, padding used for boxing and mixed martial arts are still designed to primarily reduce linear – not rotational – acceleration.'

'heMore work is needed to develop better protective padding to minimize both linear and rotational forces.'